In a rare open letter from CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday, Apple urged record companies to abandon digital rights management technologies.

The letter, posted on Apple's Web site and titled "Thoughts on Music," is a long examination of Apple's iTunes and what the future may hold for the online distribution of copy-protected music. In the letter, Jobs says Apple was forced to create a DRM system to get the world's four largest record companies on board with the iTunes Store.

But there are alternatives, Jobs wrote. Apple and the rest of the online music distributors could continue down a DRM path; Apple could license the FairPlay technology to others; or record companies could be persuaded to license music without DRM technology. The company clearly favors the third option.

"Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats," Jobs wrote. "In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat."

Jobs' letter is a bit surprising in that Apple, with the most successful online music store on the planet, has profited by including DRM technology in its products, said Mike McGuire, an analyst with Gartner. "I think it's really interesting that the company that's the greatest beneficiary of DRM systems is basically telling the industry, 'This is a problem, you need to fix this,'" he said.

RealNetworks saw Jobs' letter as a vindication of its efforts to encourage interoperability between music services, which led as far as the Harmony software that allowed songs bought from other online stores to play on the iPod.

"We've been talking about the need for open formats for a very long time," said Dan Sheeran, senior vice president for digital music at RealNetworks.

The letter appears to address critics of the iTunes Store in Europe, most recently evidenced by a
decision in Norway, where regulators deemed the iTunes Store illegal. An Apple representative said the letter was not written in response to those recent legal decisions.

"Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries," Jobs wrote. "Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free."

"You've got to hand it to Steve Jobs; he knows how to attract attention and how to deflect attention," said James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research. "He turned the whole European DRM question on its ear. 'You want me to open up FairPlay? Well, I don't even want FairPlay.'"

The Recording Industry Association of America, however, issued a statement interpreting Jobs' letter as an offer to license the FairPlay technology.

"Apple's offer to license FairPlay to other technology companies is a welcome breakthrough and would be a real victory for fans, artists and labels. There have been many services seeking a license to the Apple DRM. This would enable the interoperability that we have been urging for a very long time," it said in an e-mailed statement.

Opening the FairPlay DRM technology wouldn't be a wise strategy because Apple would have to give up the secrets of how that technology works, and it's likely that a hack for the technology would appear very quickly, Jobs wrote. Under its agreement with the record companies, Apple has just a few weeks to fix FairPlay if a breach is detected--otherwise the record company can pull all of its songs from the iTunes Store, he wrote.

"Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies," Jobs wrote in his letter.

An Apple representative declined to comment on the RIAA's interpretation of the letter.

First get the facts straight before shooting off. DRN does nothing for the iTunes/iPod combo. I have 2 iPods and have others purchase iPods and NONE of the music on any of them are from the iTunes store.Secondly, this is 100% correct in him saying this. The recording industry is the factor pushing DRM. They don't want to let go of their grip. Look at their failed attempt on CDs screwing up people's computers and the like.I find it ironic that as Steve said in his announcement

"Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly."

This is not much of a publicity stunt. If you remember when the iTunes store cames out, the restriction was added, as Jobs stated, at the insistence of the record companies. The plan was basically to get the record companies to start allowing online sales at all and to work from there.

It's great to see Steve Jobs and Bill Gates publicly denounce DRM (Gates did so last month at a conference). Now that the Two Giants of Technology have spoken up, I wonder if the Recording Industry will listen.... or will they wait until they have no other choice.

Any idea what Jobs means when he speaks of "the most serious problem is that licensing a [FairPlay] DRM involves disclosing some of its secrets to many people in many companies, and history tells us that inevitably these secrets will leak"?

"the most serious problem is that licensing a [FairPlay] DRM involves disclosing some of its secrets to many people in many companies, and history tells us that inevitably these secrets will leak"?"

Most encryption works on a public key/private key system. To decrypt the file you must have access to the key. CSS, the encryption used for DVD's, was broken years ago because one of the manufacturers let the key out. Since then, DVD's have been easy to decrypt and copy.

&gt; Any idea what Jobs means when he speaks &gt; of "the most serious problem is that licensing a &gt; [FairPlay] DRM involves disclosing some of its &gt;secrets to many people in many companies, and &gt; history tells us that inevitably these secrets &gt; will leak"?

If the details of Fairplay are leaked, then they will get hacked, hence, goodbye DRM. So what Jobs is saying that if 10,000 developers have access to Fairplay, it won't be effective any longer.

Microsoft's entire business model depends on being able to license their software to various different hardware makers, and more recently, media providers across the industry.

To that end, Hollywood's DRM demands are a direct threat to this model, since you cannot openly license your DRM schemes. Openly licensing DRM schemes defeats their point, as it reveals their technologies and becomes only a matter of (usually a very short) time before it is defeated.

So at the end of the day, the only real effect they have is penalizing the legitimate customer. If you buy the product legitimately, you've paid as much for something that you once had the ability to play back to yourself anywhere -- as long as you could afford the target medium -- that you can now only use in a very limited scope.

Either that, or you've decided not to even bother anymore, which -- guess what Hollywood? -- is doing about as much to help slumping sales as illegal downloading...

I'm a Mac(s) and iPod owner, I have an account on iTunes Store but I bought only one CD till date. Why? Because of DRM. I won't give a dime for something that I cannot possess. How do I know that in 20 years I will still be able to play the music with the DRM of today on the equipment of tomorrow?

So I still buy my music the old fashioned way: go down to the CD store, buy the CD, and rip it to MP3 (or even better -- lossless). I have amassed hundreds of CDs this way (I paid probably a fortune). I would surely buy it from iTunes as it is usually cheaper and convenient -- but please, no DRM!

Jobs is full of crap. there is no way in the world that he will ever support opening up FairPlay, opening up DRM or anything which will bring down the sales of Itunes, etc. If Jobs was so against DRM - why are songs by performers such as Avril Lavinge (spelling error, sorry) being sold WITH DRM from Itunes, when the label itself does not require DRM on its songs??

Apple insists on putting the DRM on the songs!

Steve Jobs should jump off a bridge, I'm sick and tired of hearing about how itunes, ipod, mac etc is better than everyone else in the world when there are MAJOR shortfalls on all of their products.

I wish the Government would arrest him and put him in jail over the Options Scandal that Apple is going through, its the only way to shut him up and end his blatent over-the-top marketing/lying .

First of all, it's a great idea to jail everyone that you don't agree with. Someone makes a product you don't like, "Off with their head". Viva La Revolution!

Second, the iTunes Store is not a big money maker. It covers distribution costs, studio royalties with a little bit left over. The money is in iPods not in iTunes. Read Apple's financial filings if you don't believe me.

"In the letter, Jobs says Apple was forced to create a DRM system to get the world's four largest record companies onboard with the iTunes Store."

So you think the music companies were actually ok with DRM-free music/movies? The whole DRM thing was just Apple feeling a bit evil? Tell you what, get on out there and start negotiations with those music labels. You can provide the world with DRM-free content. I'm sure they are dying to get their digital media out there with no copy protection attached.

Life would be so much better for everyone if you (and most other Apple haters) just could admit that you're angry because you are poor.

Apple creates premium products and premium products are by definition priced so that more than 50% of the consumers who wants them are to poor to buy them. That is how you create a sustained brand value. Poor and uncool people cannot be seen using the premium product. It would kill the brand.

Its people like you who makes us Apple customers feel richer, smarter and with better taste than the average guy.

So instead of bashing on Apple and Steve Jobs with confused arguments that is not based on facts and completely void of logical reasoning, why don't you just admit that you are angry because you are poor? And stupid? And totally without all forms of taste?

I mean, your life sucks anyway so why not admit it? Just don't blame it on Apple because Apple and Steve Jobs didn't create your misery. They just created vastly superior products and services that you can't afford to buy.

You are probably poor or lower middle class and can't afford Apple products

explorer5 - it's obvious that you're a Microsoft Fanboy but you're completely delusional and in so much self-denial to think all those apple adds are false wake up from your coma that is your pathetic PC (Piece of Crap).

What is described in the article is not a DRM-free world. Jobs described what would happen if all players can play music from any online store they purchase from. That would be a UNIFIED DRM, not DRM-FREE. As for embracing it in a heartbeat? No one's going to beleive you there. Because if you did, you would would've licensed FairPlay to other online distributors long time ago. Nice try in being the nice guy Jobs, but you full of it just as Gates is.

He decribes: "a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players." This is clearly not Unified Drm. Just read it more again.

As for not licencing FairPlay, read the article more closely. "a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store." He then ties that to licencing FairPlay by stating "Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies"

I don't mind pointing out inconsistencies, but do get your facts straight!

DRM was brought up from the record labels, not apple. Now under some agreements from the Record Labels, Apple can't license their DRM to other companies because the actual Labels want their music sold on iTunes because of Market Share and Apple is just a distributor, not the actual owner of the music so they have to play the rules of the game. This is all about money and how the record labels want every penny from every album they sell. If it weren't for Apple, we wouldn't have 99cent downloads. If this is how he feels, then that would be great for everyone...

No one else in the tech and entertainment industry understand consumers as Apple and Steve Jobs.

When reading his open letter, you feel his confidence that in a DRM free music world, Apple would be a bigger winner than today. It is clear that iPod is more popular than iTunes, and as Apple make little profit from music sales, they would love to sell iPods to music lover who may prefer other music stores.

What is also interesting is Steve's clarity and vision which we never see from MSFT, DELL, HP or ADBE on how we user would like to see and use technology.

When was the last time Michael Dell wrote something of this quality. He talks about cutting bonuses, reduce staff, increase sales budgets, reorganizing the business etc etc. He is clearly more interesting in quarterly earnings conf. calls with analyst than writing vision letter on how DELL customer would like their use of tech change their world for the better. (we all knwo what Dell said about Apple last time)

"Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats," Jobs wrote. "In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat."

I CAN imagine that world. It was what the world was like BEFORE APPLE STARTED SELLING MUSIC.

What Jobs is talking about is a world where the iTunes Store and others sell music online at reasonable prices and reasonable people don't steal it. You know, like the way software is sold. Excluding of course, Windows, with it's own DRM requiring activation codes.

I'm sorry. I just can no longer tolerate the idiotic rantings of some of the commentors to this blog. The pre-iTunes world that you long for is still available in every detail and facet of its orginal form. CDs, portable, medium-priced and (extremely) high-end CD decks are all available. Pre-iPod MP3-style players are also available. You can still buy MD players. You can still steal non-DRM music using P-T-P software and you can still buy, borrow or steal CDs, rip and burn them again or copy them to your MP3 player. iTunes and iPods are OPTIONS and millions of music-lovers all over the world have chosen that option because it works and it is convenient. No one is forcing you to use iTunes or iPods. If you have a problem with it, JUST SAY NO and quit whining. It's really starting to get boring.

What you're referring to is the world before legal MP3 downloads. It has nothing to do with APPLE. There are no legal DRM free sources of major label music. Independent labels, yes, but not RIAA members. (Though I hear yahoo is experimenting lately) The RIAA is the culprit, not APPLE.(No, I'm not an APPLE fan, have never bought an iTunes song.)

While I hate to sympathize with the recording industry due to their cruel tactics of going after the 'little guy', they do have a serious issue with piracy that creates the need for DRM.

Steve Jobs doesn't give a rat's a$$ whether there is DRM or not as long as whatever the medium is can play on an iPod. In fact, it is probably cheaper for him to not have to deal with DRM. Don't get it twisted, he is not preaching for the sake of the end-user.

The problem with the record industry is that they helped create a standard, CD's and CD players, without the forsight that eventually people would rip and distribute thier content. DRM for music is nothing more than a retro-fit solution. DVD's have the same problem although they at least tried to encrypt the contents.

RIAA, you want to stop people from stealing your stuff, quit trying to duct-tape DRM onto your current goods and create new goods. Create a new medium and phase out CD's. You did it before with records and cassettes. This time think ahead.

Subscription music isn't "cool" or an interesting scenario to consumers, or at least it hasn't been so far. It's been largely unsuccessful, and if music is cheap enough and easily accessible enough, it becomes more or less useless. Why would I pay $10 a month to listen a song I could buy for $1?

Do you just buy 1 song each month and listen to that over and over? Then subscription won't work for you. Usually you listen to some music for a few months and move on. Most of the music produced won't be played after 10 years. Only 1% will become classics and is worth buying. And that kind of stuff you would buy DRM-free anyways.

Maybe you are right and subscription music isn't that cool for everybody - but your reasoning is weak. Are you really listening to one song per month? That would be quite unusial!

In real life people listen to hundreds of songs per month, and if they are interested in listening new songs, not the same old suff they bought last year, subscription could be quite reasonable solution for some...

I personally do not use subscription because current DRM rules are too awkward and restricitive, but I certainly spend more on buying music than monthly subscription fee would cost me.

Finally, someone, besides myself, has noticed that morality cannot be legislated. That no matter what the big media companies do, there will be pirates.

The trick is to figure out how to sell music, videos and such, in a way that people would prefer to obtain them legally. That piracy would just be a fringe aberration that doesn't really harm the business.

I'm not smart enough to know the answer to this. I hope someone figures it out, because what we have now with DRM doesn't work.

If it's easy and cheap to buy a non-DRM track, most people will do it out of convenience. You will always have losers who want to stay up all night looking for downloads but personally, I have better uses for my time and I'd rather just buy the track or album. Same goes for DVDs. Get rid of the "manufactured defect" copy protection schemes and I'll start buying them again.

"The trick is to figure out how to sell music, videos and such, in a way that people would prefer to obtain them legally."

Well, that's what Apple is trying to do with the iTunes store. They have this neat jukebox software (iTunes) that lets you organize and manage your music library (including burning tracks to CD or loading them onto your iPod), and they have their store integrated right into iTunes. In the iTunes music store, you have an effective search and navigation system so that you can easily find what you are looking for, you can browse for similar music, you can play preview clips to make sure you've *really* found what you're looking for. You know that you'll get a high-quality recording of exactly the song you want, complete with artwork and other metadata, the song will accurately file itself into your jukebox, your downloads are managed by iTunes and optimized so that the smaller files come first, and they come from known high-bandwidth servers on high-speed connections. In other words, Apple has developed a system for the legal distribution of music which provides enough advantages for the average user that it's worth the $1 just for the convenience and quality of service. Billions of songs later, Apple has proven its point: Give people convenience and qualty and they'll pay for the product. After all, just about everything that the iTunes store sells is also available illegally, without DRM, and for free...and that doesn't seem to have hurt Apple's sales that much.

I wonder if the movie studios will figure it out as well. You know they could put most of the movie pirates out of business if they did universal release dates and had movie theaters sell DVDs of new releases starting on day of release...and with theaters converting over to digital projection, all the excuses for NOT doing it this way will go away....

"So we should get rid of all the laws against theft "because morality
cannot be legislated"? When this happens let me know what kind of
car you have and where it is."

That is not what he said at all. He said that "The trick is to figure out how to sell music, videos and such, in a way that people would prefer to obtain them legally." This does not translate to "abolition of all laws." This is a strawman argument, and a very badly used one, I might add.

To say that "Subscription music isn't "cool" or an interesting scenario to consumers" is flat out wrong and you're obviously not getting the point. Don't assume that since you're not using it, it must be a bust.

You don't pay $10 / month for a song you could buy for one dollar...that WOULD be stupid. You pay it to listen to whatever you want, and not be limited to the various songs you've purchased online. Seriously, how many of the CDs you've purchased (if you're honest) in your lifetime that you can definitely say you still listen to...all of them, half of them?

Hopefully it's the former and buying songs one by one (or CD) works for you. It doesn't for me, and I'm ok with paying a monthly fee to access (and take with me) whatever's out there...it's the variety...spice of life...you know? Subscription models introduce you to all kinds of new music...I'd be really upset if that was no longer available.

copy protection with quality assurance. One of the major flaws in the Windows ecosystem is that it runs on any piece of junk with an x86 processor. I'd love to blame all Windows problems on Microsoft, but the fact is that if they didn't have to support all sorts of cheap junk, Windows would be better than it is. I'm not saying it would be good mind you, but it would be better.

Hey Steve - YOU FIRST! Why don't you allow anyone who buys one copy of OSX to copy it as many times as they wish, share it with "friends" over the internet, or (gasp!) install it on non-Apple machines! You're asking the music industry to do the equivalent. ( And I realize you don't a rat's rear end about the actual musicians who try to make a living of the sales of their music.) Somebody needs to niche-slap Stevie back into the stone age. I can only hope the head of the 4 major labels get together for a photo opportunity, &#38; have their picture taken with 4 middle digits extended in Steve's direction.

Apple is hardware company. D'uh. Why would they want to let their software run on someone else's hardware??? It's not about crippling the OS. It's about creating a seamless user experience.

Look at what years of being able to run Windows on any old box got us? On the positive side, a huge industry was created. On the down side, consumers continue to spend needless hours/days of their lives just trying to get their computers to work.

If the any-old-piece-of-hardware PC approach actually meant a pleasant experience for the consumer, that would be one thing. But it hasn't. And never will. Apple is able to deliver a superior product because they control everything. You may not like this, but I do.

I like the fact that my Mac just works. I like the fact that I never have driver headaches, nor am I erradicting viruses and spyware on a daily basis. I don't know a single PC user who doesn't wrestle with his or her PC on a regular basis. Apple's "closed" system is a huge benefit to the consumer. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Do you want DRM or not? Stop slagging people for speaking out against it. If you're opposed to closed systems and proprietary formats, then speak against them. Apple and Jobs have done plenty of stupid things, but this isn't one of them.

Steve Jobs is about providing value. And yes, if you provide value, you make money -- hand over fist if you're also marketing-savvy, articulate, sexy by design, and efficient about operations. And that's why Jobs-bashing misses the point.

The iTunes store has always been about providing real value -- not just to consumers but also to the copyright holders. As he summed up the history of the store's success in the context of the iPod's success, "So far we have met our commitments to the music companies to protect their music, and we have given users the most liberal usage rights available in the industry for legally downloaded music."

But if you are conspiracy-minded, remember that Jobs has a very large stake in Disney, a major copyright holder. What works for music might one day work for movies and TV shows. Everyone is motivated by self-interest to some extent. In this case, Jobs has articulated a vision that we can imagine as good for everyone -- consumers, manufacturers, and the software and content industries.

And at the same time, Jobs has clearly fired a shot across the bow of the big four music companies, which he not only names but ironically points to their part-European ownership. If Jobs feels the squeeze from European consumer groups, he is now redirecting it back to the source of the problem. Steve Jobs has put the music labels on notice. It may just be the right time to do that, as pricing issues will resurface with licensing extension negotiations between Apple and the labels, and DRM might also be a major issue involving the Beatles music.

One thing for sure if you love your music, you rip it from the CD after buying the CD. I rip at the highest quality, because it just sound so good compared to the 128bit, that passes for online music. With a set of good cans and with or without a headphone amp, the music sounds great. Even when I play it in the car with the direct connect, the MP3 and other DRM music I have purchase pales by comparison. So I just don't buy much, and my player is well over 90% ripped from cd's.

By "highest quality," do you mean that you actually rip them in AIFF format? That's the only way to get true CD quality - the highest quality available for the average consumer - but it costs you dearly in HD space on your digital player (and hard drive/DVDs where it's backed up. You do back up your music, right?)

AAC at 128 bit (for comparison, its quality is about the same as ripping in MP3 format at 192 bit, with a smaller file size) is about the best you can get and still fit your favorite few thousand songs and shows on a decent-sized player.

If you need CD-quality that badly - and I know that there are a few audiophiles out there who do - you should probably invest in a CD changer for your car, not a player that's designed to hold your whole music collection in *near* CD-quality sound, whether it be an iPod, Zune, PSP, Palm, or SanDisk.

But if what you're looking for is to avoid the lower quality of the MP3 method, you might want to avoid ripping in that format entirely (if you do). The ever-popular Wikipedia describes the problems it has rather well. Among others:

"... a natural side effect of the MP3 method is that it suffers a loss of information over time - bass frequencies - resulting in, often even to an untrained ear, distinguishable disfiguration of these frequencies, which can not be parried no matter how high bitrate the material is encoded in. Among the current, popular audio encoders, MP3 is alone in having this particular disadvantage." (<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding" target="_newWindow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding</a>)

Happy listening, music lover. May you continue to rock on completely with some brand new components.

Let's see how altruistic Steve Jobs is.I bet if someone built a website called "Steve Hates DRM .com" &#38; posted zips of installers for Shake, Apature,Final Cut Pro, &#38; any other overpriced Apple Software, along with the encryption keys, Steve &#38; Apple's legal department would be suing a a heartbeat. Why Steve? I thought you didn't like DRM? A hole hypocrite. Yeah.Steve cares about consumers, Right. And my name's Zanny Blowzdogs.

Allowing the possibility of breaking a rule is not the same as ADVOCATING that the rule be broken. It is also not the same as IGNORING those braking the rule.

For example, most cars can break most speed limits, but that doesn't mean the car manufacturers advocate speeding. It also does not make speeding legal. The DRM approach to this problem would be to force car designers to make cars that CANNOT brake a speed limit. Notice that nobody is doing that.

What encryption keys? All the apps you mention are distributed by Apple unencrypted, and can be freely copied. Hell, Mac OS X and all of Apple's consumer-grade applications don't even need a serial number to install and use. As for the pro apps (with the exception of Logic Pro, which uses a USB dongle for historical reasons), all they recquire is a (easily copied) serial number to install, like any professional application.And guess what? The software still gets strong sales. Apple is still the #1 platform for media production.

As for Steve and apple "caring for consumers", just step inside an Apple Store and look at the service provided at the "Genious Bar". What other company has customer service like that?

Please, before talk or write about something you don't really manage, please do a little of research.A lot of people in the industry of content creation are in debt with Steve Jobs and the people at Apple for the "democratization" of the profesional video industry with the launch of FCP and the software related to it.Before FCP, only big companies were capable to afford the purchase of editing technology who cost over 50K (in the best case scenario). Today, and thank to apple, you can have the same quality of software and results for under 12K (in the worst case scenario). And what is more important: before FCP you were forced to buy expensive propietary hardware that ONLY work with his software. With Apple products that choice depends on you.OK, I am agree with you that the apple team may sue you if you download an apple software from a page as you said, but: Why someone have to do that? Apple software is really affordable.

Digital Restrictions Management that Jobs is referring to goes way back to when PressPlay was the only online music "distribution" store around. Since then, DRM hasn't changed. DRM is a joke and always will be a joke. Until the labels are forced to remove their DRM practices via Congress or pressure elsewhere, the RIAA and their members will continue to stick it to the consumers.

Who really knows if this is a ggod or bad idea for record companies. Mr. Jobs would be as fine a expert on the subject as anyone.

The only real way to answer this once and for all is by experimenting with selling DRM free music files like EMI has been doing. If all the record companies and digital music websites did some serious and complete testing then the results would illustrate the facts. Does DRM matter or not?

Also, subscription schemes would not have to be abandoned if music files that are 'sold' did not have DRM and 'rented' music could include DRM. There could be many different ways to do it.

These 4 big labels will die in next 5 - 10 years. Music is the last area which did not adopted to the new reality - compare with telecommunication prices, CPU prices and so so on.

The reasons are simple:- The amount of money which people spent on music DONT DEPEND of music price. If my kids got $20 for music - tehy will spend $20 on music. It can be 1 CD (unlikely) or 1 MP3 CD (in Russia) or they wil pay it for the snickers and download music for free - but they will spend the same $20. I spend the same money for the music, no matter what is the price (moreover, I never purchase expensive disks). - If music is too expensive, people just use P2P network or purchase MP3 disk in Russia, or copy from the friends (DRM is not a problem in real life).- If music is cheaper, people will have more music by the same price (but they will pay the same money).

Today I have disks (from all countries except USA) with 100 - 200 songs on each (MP3 CD), which I can copy into my car, into ipod, into my cell phone and so on. I never EVER (absolutely NEVER) purchase any music with DRM - never did and never do in the future. I will never purchase any player which will lock me in.

Many other people, including kids, do the same.

So, image that music labels changed. You can pay 10 - 20c per song and download it in MP3 format, you can purchse "ABBA GOLD" disk not in Russia but in USA, with 100 ABBA songs in MP3 format (for $15), you can go to a book store and download new 100 songs, released in the last month, for $20. Result - no one will use P2P (no need), you will have 20 times more songs in your households, and digital studios will got THE SAME money as they do now (replication music cost is 0 for them). Moreover, you will not purchase CD's in a box - you come to a books tore,. select 20 or 100 songs (or 10 albums), and have CD burned for you in 5 minutes - so expenses decreses for the music industry.

It's the same, what happened with Voice. Cisco predicted to traditional Telco 10 years ago - change your business or die. It happen - we pay the same monthly $20 - $50 for long distance calls we paid before, but we have 10 - 20 times more time to talk; we pay the same money to the cell companies we paid before - but we can talk 10 - 20 times more and can send data (and it's not just as _replicate disk_ as in music). We already pay the same money in Russia, for example - and have 20 times more songs on disks (no one in Russia purchase CD because everyone purchase MP3).

So, Jobs is 100% correct. DRM music is a fraction of all music, and making music DRM'ed just encourage people to avoid it or hack it (by blacking their perimeter, by hacking Sony weird DRM, and so on). DRM must die, because it don't hold any value and just prevent the whole indistry to change.

DRM can live for software (esp. minor niche one), for digital data, but not for the cosnsumer's.

Alexei, your comment on this issue was the most on it that i have read in a long time. It is difficult for people to just come out and speak clearly and articulate what is going on in the music world without the fuzziness. I am a music producer and technologist and I also feel that the major music labels will have to change their business model at some point or go away. Big props to Steve Jobs for lending his stature and great visionary status to hopefully help make the change much sooner rather than later and to everyones benefit.Ya know digital technology is dramatically changing the way that we access all media and yet the music industry has been notorious for holding us back. This cannot go on forever.

As a music artist and producer i want to get paid for my work but more importantly i want to be at the forefront of technology.I definitely DO NOT want to be seen as holding back progress(the proverbial nail in the road) Up to now I have seen the music industry be one of the first to embrace new technology and give music lovers a better product because of it. We need to get back to that and get back to our artistic roots. The real money and future of the music industry is grounded in the creativity of the recording artists, NOT in the corporate greed that breeds DRM like policies and contempt in the music lover.

well, you'll probably never believe me.. but "Explorer" comes from "Ford Explorer" of which I was obsessed with years ago - and the name just has stuck.. It has nothing to do with Windows or Internet Explorer - I SWEAR!!

You're free to make your other opinions about me(of which i dont agree) but i just wanted to explain where Explorer comes from!

Report offensive content:

If you believe this comment is offensive or violates the CNET's Site Terms of Use, you can report it below (this will not automatically remove the comment). Once reported, our staff will be notified and the comment will be reviewed.

E-mail this comment to a friend.

E-mail this to:

Note: Your e-mail address is used only to let the recipient know who sent the e-mail and in case of transmission error. Neither your address nor the recipients's address will be used for any other purpose.